Dreadful Delights

Lock and Suit (Horror)

A vampire, a zombie, and an alien smile in unison as the woman drops a handful of candy into their Halloween baskets. "Thank you," they say as they skip up the short gravel walkway, back under the guide of the streetlights.

The woman watches from the front porch as they disappear around the corner before turning and stepping back into the house. Her hand still on the knob, she waits for the click of the door before engaging the lock.

The smile falls of her lips as she places the bag of candy on the table in the foyer and walks back into the living room.

A knock on the door.

She fixes her smile, grabs the bag of candy, and opens the door to find the porch empty. But when she looks down, she sees a lock of brown hair. She reaches down to grab it and waits again for the door to close completely before locking up. Then, she switches off the porch light and takes the bag of candy into the kitchen.

With the lock of hair in her hand, she opens the white door just to the left of her and descends into the dark basement. Immediately upon reaching the landing, the light powers on, illuminating the spacious, windowless room with artificial, sterile brightness.

She makes her way along the rows of Suits hanging from hooks on the ceiling, arranged by shade and size, holding up the lock of hair next to each one. In the second row, third from the end, she sees a slightly tanned Suit, the perfect complement to the brown. She carefully pulls it off the hanger, making sure that the hook, though rounded, doesn't tear through the delicate organic shelling.

Draping it over her arm, she brings it to her work-table in the back, where she lays it flat. Being one of the shorter sizes she has available, it barely takes up two-thirds of the work surface.

Before she begins prepping, she places the lock of hair in a vacuum-seal bag and labels it with the date and Suit identification number. She then begins the assessment.

Shelling smooth and unblemished. No major changes required, she notes.

Next, the zipper evaluation: it is, after all, the unbreakable rule of all employees in the Organization to verify that the zipper is undetectable to the naked human eye. With a nimble flick of her wrist, she turns the Suit over and runs her fingers over the track.

Satisfied, she nods.

After a thorough wipe-down and conditioning, she'll just have to bag it and send it off to her kin, who will then attach matching hairs.

For a moment, she considers changing out of her current one; she's been in it for almost three Suns. Craving a taste for something different, her fingers itch to undo the zipper on the back of her neck and try on the shelling in front of her.

But, no.

She trains her focus back to preparing the Suit.